Today Microsoft launches its new Windows 8 operating system, and Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster are proud to announce the release of our Windows 8 applications. Available now in the Windows 8 app store, these two products mark the next step in the digital evolution of our iconic brands.
I have been preparing Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster for the Windows 8 launch for some time, leading our development efforts in creating these truly stunning applications. This new medium has provided the ideal platform for us to give our users so much more than our core content.
Optimized for both touch and traditional mouse and keyboard, the Britannica App features the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica database as well as tens of thousands of high-resolution images. But it is the interactivity of Windows 8 that really allowed us to stretch our imaginations and construct a pristine balance of form and function.
With features like the Britannica Link Map, our goal was to provide an environment for users not just to consume knowledge, but to experience it, enjoy it, and make connections between related topics by gliding freely and easily from one to the next. For example, if you?re reading the article on Albert Einstein, you can click on Link Map and bring up a web of connections to phenomena such as relativity, space-time, the photoelectric effect, and the field of physics itself. Tap any of the other nodes on the map, and you can expand the web even further or read the article on the topic you?ve selected. Link Map is an elegant and simple user-controlled guide to knowledge in all its interconnectivity and a way of learning that today?s technologies make possible.
Similarly, the Merriam-Webster App makes excellent use of the Windows 8 environment to deliver quality information. This is Merriam-Webster?s Collegiate Dictionary, America?s most useful and respected dictionary. In addition to all the definitions, the app includes an integrated thesaurus, example sentences, and a Word of the Day feature?along with over 1,000 illustrations and more than 20,000 entries covering people, places, and foreign terms. It?s a great tool for reference, education, and vocabulary building.
These apps are part of a broader story for both companies, Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Both have been around for more than a century?almost two and a half centuries in the case of Britannica. Both have long been admired, trusted, and respected for their high-quality work. Both were born and thrived in the print era, and both have made the transition from print to digital and today stand among a small number of publishers that have done so successfully.
Both Merriam-Webster and Britannica are digital, mobile, and on the cutting edge of knowledge, education, and learning. We?re proud to be part of the Windows 8 launch. The apps we?re releasing today are just two examples of where Britannica and Merriam-Webster are now, and they are fine examples indeed. It?s never been easier or more affordable to use our products. I hope you enjoy both.
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